


Trepidation

by palacesoutofparagraphs



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: 2008 Campaign Era (Crooked Media RPF), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Soulmates, oblivious boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22156051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palacesoutofparagraphs/pseuds/palacesoutofparagraphs
Summary: Jon Favreau saw colors for the first time in a meeting leading up to Obama's campaign announcement, and despite his title of speechwriter, he cannot find the words to say to the Iowa Press Secretary that's apparently his soulmate. Even though he quite literally sees the world in a different way, Jon goes through the campaign pretending nothing has changed. He fears messing up the precarious balance of a long-shot presidential bid and desperately wants to show he is worth his salt. This whole soulmate matter only complicated things.Basically, a story of two oblivious boys on the Obama '08 campaign, fearing that turning this country around leaves no time for falling in love.
Relationships: Jon Favreau/Tommy Vietor
Comments: 42
Kudos: 32





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work, both in this fandom and in general. I would love if you guys left comments and feedback! I plan to continue updating, this will be a multi-chapter fic. It's gonna span the campaign, I would bet on at least five chapters. Thanks for reading!!

The first time Jon saw color was ironically in a campaign office with no windows, awash with fluorescent lighting that made everything seem grey. 

It wasn’t grey, though, it couldn’t be, because this new guys’ eyes had a cool richness about them, a deeper tone than the powdery blue shirt he wore, and his freckled face flushed, the rosy shade clashing with his strawberry blonde hair. Jon racked his brain - this had to be the one who’d staffed Obama’s Senate campaign too, the one who was going to Iowa soon, Tim, was it? 

“Tommy - uh, Tommy Vietor. Iowa Press Secretary, or, I will be, you know, when we start to campaign in uh, Iowa, anyway - sorry. Yeah. Tommy. Nice to meet you,” The new guy - Jon’s soulmate, shit - stammered out. Tommy towered over Jon as he spoke, who’d been too shocked by the whole color element of it all to stand up. His mom would have been appalled at his manners, especially towards someone who was apparently made for him.

Jon stood shakily, but cleared his throat and stuck out his hand before replying, “Jon Favreau, I’m the Senator’s speechwriter.”

Even just this brief greeting felt right to Jon somehow, like the callouses on each others’ hands were sculpted to fit together perfectly. It was as though his hand - the hand that had played so many concertos on the piano, composed stories and poems, moved from Boston to Worcester to D.C. to Chicago, even written speeches for a Senator that just might be the President one day - had only been an unmatched set for all his life, since it hadn’t been in Tommy’s.

Jon looked at Tommy for a moment, convinced to not say the wrong thing to this guy who he knew only two things about: one, that he was a Democrat working on the Senator’s campaign, and two, that his soul was inextricably linked to Jon’s by some force far beyond either of them. Before he could say anything, the door creaked open, and Senator Obama entered, tightly followed by Gibbs and Axe.

“I see you two have met,” the Senator said as he walked towards the front of the table, “great, that’s less time we need for introductions. Let’s get started.”

Jon sat down and took notes on a half-used legal pad throughout the meeting, chiming in regarding bits of communications strategy, but he wasn’t focused like he usually was in these discussions. Instead, Jon’s mind swam with the gravity of his earlier encounter with Tommy. When he woke up, he hadn’t felt the way people said they felt in romance novels, queasy with anticipation and delight. It had just been any old Wednesday, a wintry Chicago day, and yet two seats away from him was the person tailor-made for him, his perfect match. 

Jon’s eyes flitted around the room, soaking in the canary yellow of the legal pad, his shoes’ rich leather, the royal blue ink flowing from his pen, the vibrant green Expo marker notes on the whiteboard. All of these ordinary things had come to life, seemingly out of nowhere. Or, Jon realized, that ever-present life had always been there, but he’d never been able to see it before Tommy. He couldn’t wait to go outside, to look at flowers and the sky and see if they measured up to the descriptions in all the novels he’d read throughout his life. First, however, he’d need to talk to Tommy about the gravity of this all. Jon mulled over what he’d say to Tommy while willing himself not to divert his gaze to the blonde in the corner of his eye.

As the meeting wrapped up, Jon jotted down a few ideas up for the announcement speech, a task that felt monumental way that harshly reminded him that he was only twenty-five and didn’t know jack shit about running for president. Hell, some months he could barely scrape together rent after overspending on shitty beer. Life seemed to be barreling towards him at breakneck speeds, and despite the success he’d had, he couldn’t help but find it ironic that a speechwriter couldn’t find words, not for Obama to give in February, nor for himself to give to Tommy now. He watched Tommy follow Gibbs towards the door, apparently going to Gibbs’ office to figure out some Iowa logistics.

“Wait, Tommy,” Jon blurted out, hoping not to miss his chance to say something and subsequently seem like a thoughtless douche to his soulmate. Tommy turned, one eyebrow cocked, and Jon realized that he’d been ready to leave. Tommy was curious as to why Jon was calling his name, and Jon realized that maybe Tommy hadn’t seen color at all. After all, why would he look confused if the world hadn’t turned on its head like it did for Jon in that moment? Jon had heard about non-reciprocal soulmates, but he’d never imagine it’d be him, this all felt like some nightmare. He couldn’t face that devastation and heartbreak, especially couldn’t face it in front of the Senator who’d taken a chance on some young kid to write speeches for him and would likely not be reassured by that kid crying like a blubbering idiot in front of him.

So when Tommy breaks his spiraling thoughts with, “Yeah, Jon, what’s up?” Jon steadies his voice as best he can and replies, “It was good to meet you.”

“You too, man. Can’t wait to work with you over the next year or so,” Tommy answers. It seems so normal, but Jon can’t help but think for a moment that there’s something more in his eyes, his eyes that are so horribly blue. Jon hadn’t even known what blue looked like before today, and yet now the poems he’d read in high school and college that described oceans and summer skies and cornflowers suddenly make so much more sense. Jon’s life wasn’t a sappy poem, though. It was a regular life, a life in which he had a job that he couldn’t blow, a life with stakes far too high to blow over some guy who was Jon’s soulmate if Jon clearly wasn’t his. So Jon nodded, forced a grin, and opened his laptop as Tommy walked out the door. Elections weren’t won pining after preppy blonde boys, after all, even if they happened to be your soulmate.


	2. Summer '07

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some absolute angst and pining. I'm sorry. You'll see more of Tommy starting next chapter, I promise.

Before the campaign really got rolling, Jon had been restless, just waiting for it to start. The winter trudged past, in his opinion, and he desperately wanted to write speeches about hope and change. He couldn’t wait to write something that invoked in others the same swell Jon felt in his chest when the Senator spoke.

Winter-era Jon Favreau could go fuck himself, thought the Jon Favreau of August 2007. The Time poll had them within the margin of error from Hillary in Iowa, which was a small miracle, but still seven points behind John Edwards. The caucuses were approaching faster than any of them would like to think and yet still felt imaginary, as though HQ was playing an elaborate, statistic-heavy game of pretend. The office was not immune to the Chicago summer’s sweltering tyranny, and Jon often ended twelve-hour days by peeling the sweaty oxford shirts he wore off his back.

Plus, Tommy was in Iowa, which fucking sucked.

* * *

They’d started hanging out with groups of staff members; hitting bars, guzzling beers and devouring relish-laden hot dogs until the wee hours of the morning. And though he tried, Jon couldn’t seem to meet Tommy with the lukewarm interest he shot for. Tommy seemed to suck him in in a way that was truly unfair. Jon had thought he was nothing if not disciplined, and yet he found himself drunkenly leaning on Tommy’s shoulder time after time. 

Naturally, they became fast friends. Jon found this horribly unfair - how could he not love spending time with Tommy, what with Tommy being literally made for him and all? It would have been much simpler if he could have just forgotten about Tommy, seen the colors, and moved on with his life. There were people didn’t end up with their soulmates, and they seemed happy enough. But for Jon, Tommy was close - terribly and wonderfully imminent in Jon’s life. 

Their friendship had started mostly of convenience and the shared camaraderie of doing something crazy together, like electing a first-term Senator from Chicago named Barack Hussein Obama. But beers with the staff slowly turned into a real geniality between them, and soon Jon found himself going on twice-weekly runs on the lakeshore with Tommy at the ass-crack of dawn. 

On those mornings, the sun would inch out over the horizon and paint Lake Michigan’s crystalline waters shades of orange and pink that flickered across the surface alongside reflections of the skyline. Jon stayed up at night scrawling pages about the concrete against the soles of his gym shoes, the way Tommy would look over at him and say something dorky like, “not a bad view, huh,” the anticipatory build of a city just before the day began. And despite the constant, all-consuming sleep deprivation, Jon didn’t want to close his eyes for risk of missing a moment. 

He’d read in some pretentious novel that one only really started living when they met their soulmate, that everything before that was simply a precursor to the fullness of a life in love. If that was true, Jon was begging for crumbs. Tommy and Jon grew closer and Obama inched closer to the nomination with each passing day, and so with each passing day, Jon had more and more to lose by telling Tommy that he’d seen color that day in the conference room, that Tommy was his soulmate. They called themselves Team Obama at HQ, after all, and it would kill Jon if the affinity they had for each other bled out, all thanks to the twenty-five year old speechwriter who was reckless enough to let Tommy Vietor shatter him.

Despite it all, he didn’t realize he’d been falling in love until Tommy moved off to Iowa.

* * *

He’d known that Tommy’s departure was coming, but then Tommy _left_ and everything became so _shallow_. It felt crazy; Jon knew that he was an integral component of something real and good with each speech he wrote for Obama, and yet he still felt that he was in the wilderness of his own life. People had told him that everything in Chicago is the most alive in the summer, and logically, Jon could see that was true. Street musicians underscored each walk to work, the beach was filled with people enjoying life for the sake of life itself, and everything was so vibrant under the cloudless sky. And yet, Jon thought that colors were pointless if Tommy’s deep blue eyes were out of sight, all the way in Iowa.

Yeah, he was definitely in love. As he wrote speeches and crafted the soaring imagery people so associated with Obama, he’d take himself back to those runs on the lakeshore and the words would pour out of him effortlessly. And yeah, maybe he did volunteer to help with clips on the off-chance of Tommy’s face being in some paper like _The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier_ or the _Sioux Valley News_, but he was helpful, goddamn it. He was an absolute delight - Jon Favreau, “a pleasure to have in class” until death - and this whole pining over the Iowa Press Secretary thing wasn’t an issue in the slightest.

It was only late at night when he couldn’t sleep, strung-out but still buzzing from caffeine, that Jon let himself face the exhilaration and abject terror he felt when he thought of Tommy’s return in January.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and Kudos are so appreciated.


	3. Iowa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're getting somewhere!

The flight from O’Hare to Des Moines was a little under ninety minutes, but Jon hated flying nonetheless. He had a multitude of reasons to feel nauseous, even outside of the giant metal death catapult in which he was confined. Gibbs kept saying not to bedwet, but how could he not - the polls were neck and neck. Iowa was do or die, win or go home. 

Jon knew once he got to Iowa it would all seem so much more real. He was already sending out speeches hand over fist for Obama to give, and the weight of the world already seemed to weigh on each word. He didn’t want to think about how it would feel in Iowa, surrounded by yard signs and organizers and, worst of all, undecided voters. Oh yeah, and Tommy would be there. Jon desperately needed a drink, or maybe a Xanax.

* * *

He hadn’t seen Tommy in weeks, and even then, each interaction they’d had since he’d moved to Iowa had been surrounded by the flurry of the campaign. They mostly communicated in typo-heavy texts that bitched about Politico headlines and Clinton staffers. Jon brightened each time his Blackberry buzzed with a sarcastic take from Tommy about yet another bullshit question from a reporter, but that wasn’t the same as being there with Tommy.

Just as Tommy pointed out when they bantered about whose job was more challenging, Jon got to write everything out. When he didn’t know what to say, he had all the time in the world to figure it out, as opposed to Tommy, who had to extemporaneously answer each question. Jon would never admit it to Tommy, but the thought of having to be so immediate in what he said terrified him. One wrong move, and the house of cards he’d built around his friendship with Tommy would come crashing down.

* * *

On the night of the caucuses, they watched the returns in a dimly-lit room not much bigger than a broom closet. Tommy paced back and forth, cursing from either excitement or stress as emails or text messages came in from precinct captains. Jon kept rereading both the victory and the concession speeches, which were pulled up in side by side Word documents on his laptop. He felt ridiculous, sitting criss-cross on the floor, anxiously checking for dangling modifiers.

As the night progressed, Tommy’s exclamations of “oh, shit” were more and more replaced by “holy shit!” The energy in the boiler room swelled, and Jon allowed himself to hope that this might actually happen. He kept the concession document open in the background, but expanded the victory speech so it filled the screen.

It was done. They called it. Obama had won, they had really won, and by almost eight points at that. Jon pinched himself, then typed ‘FINAL DRAFT - TheySaidThisDayWouldNeverCome.doc’ into the subject line of an email. He hit send with shaking hands.

* * *

Later that night, he watched Obama give the speech he’d written for this scenario that had for so long felt like a fairy tale. Jon wanted to stay in this moment forever, standing backstage at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines, still in awe at the magnitude of their feat. Obama stood in front of a majestic American flag accepting his victory over the Iowa caucuses. A young, black Senator with a name like Barack Obama had won Iowa. This was a testament to the progress America was capable of achieving at its best, and Jon was lucky enough to be a part of it. 

Overwhelmed with emotion, Jon started to laugh breathlessly, as though his joy bubbled over. Tommy put a hand on his shoulder, and Jon turned to look at him. Even with the weird yellowish backstage lighting, Tommy seemed to glow, from his beaming grin to his eye crinkles to his hair, which had been mussed up from running his hand through it all evening.

“Holy shit, we did it,” Tommy whispered.

“Well, I think _we_ is a bit disingenuous,” Jon pointed out, “I think you have a hell of a lot to take credit for, Mr. Iowa Press Secretary.”

Tommy shook his head. “No, Jon. All of this about hope, all of this about change we can believe in, that’s you, those are your words. I answered some questions about the war in Iraq and farm subsidies, but Jon, you - _you did that_,” he insisted, nodding his head towards the supporters that packed the ballroom. And with Tommy saying things like that, how could Jon not be in love with him? 

Jon’s brain felt like alphabet soup as he tried to figure out what to reply. Dan Pfieffer, the traveling Press Secretary, saved Jon from himself by clapping his hand on Jon’s other shoulder.

“Can you believe it?” Dan remarked. 

Jon swallowed the lump in his throat and let out a nervous laugh. “Feels like I’m dreaming.”

* * *

That night, the campaign staff celebrated in a way that only people who’ve achieved the impossible can do. For Jon, that meant getting absolutely slammed. After a few rounds of beer pong, his coordination was lackluster at best, setting him up for a truly embarrassing game of flip cup. Jon noticed that the edges of his vision were funny as he chugged the diesel-like concoction Alyssa had poured into the bitch cup.

Somehow, Tommy and Jon had ended up in the print room at HQ. Their drunk personalities were polar opposites; whereas Jon grew more reserved and introspective, drunk Tommy was chatty, impulsive, and rambunctious. He paced around the had a few drinks and ended up wearing an American flag as a cape. Jon tipsily leaned against the countertop, listening to Tommy, whose arms waved animatedly to emphasize his gushing ramblings.

“I just - I can’t believe it. Really. So many people came out and actually gave a shit, and Jon, don’t you get it? What we do really matters. This matters, all of us, we really might do this.”

“You’d hope so,” Jon quipped, “seeing as we’ve spent almost a year of our lives on it.”

Tommy put his hands on either of Jon’s shoulders. “You know what I mean, Jon,” Tommy insisted, “it was always a long shot, but now they’ll take us seriously. Hope, change, all of it, it’s real.”

“Yeah,” Jon said softly, “it’s real.”

In that moment, braced by Tommy’s hands on his shoulders, time seemed to stand still for Jon. Nothing in the print room had a particularly bright tone to it, but Jon didn’t want to imagine how this moment would feel if his world was still in black and white. He wondered if Tommy could see them too, if Tommy knew the cavernous blue of his eyes or the muted pastels in his checked shirt. In that moment, Jon didn’t want to imagine his life in anything but full technicolor.

Lines from Obama’s speech echoed in Jon’s mind:

_ Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it… Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be. _

Jon didn’t know what alien force took over him and decided that in that moment, he was not content to settle for the world as it was, not content with the friendship he’d carefully constructed. His thoughts swimming in a mix of hope, courage, and booze, he put a hand on Tommy’s jaw, leaned in, and pressed his lips to the blonde’s.

Tommy’s eyes shot open in shock, but he was quick to melt into the kiss and move his arms from Jon’s shoulders to his back. Jon felt tingles throughout his body, as though his blood had turned to champagne. Tommy’s lips were soft and Jon fit so perfectly in his arms and everything outside the two of them seemed to disappear as they kissed.

When Tommy pulled back, breathless, Jon met his eyes and was immediately sobered. They were in the print room, complete with its stacks of yard signs piled up behind them, boxes of t-shirts against one of the beige walls, an ungodly checklist of logistical tasks pinned to the corkboard. They were in the print room in Des Moines, and Jon had kissed Tommy, who was arguably Jon's best friend. Tommy, who didn’t know he was Jon’s soulmate. 

For the first time that night, the colors seemed to taunt him. The shimmering gold in Tommy’s hair when it caught the light, the cobalt blue of the Obama ‘08 yard signs, the bubblegum pink of the post its on the walls - all there to remind Jon in this very moment that he was a fucking idiot. He was a kid in over his head in a number of ways. The color thing was an unavoidable instance of destiny being written for him, and he was arrogant enough to try to flout that for a boy who clearly wasn’t in love with him.

Eyes still locked with Tommy’s, Jon didn’t dare take a breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leaving it on a cliffhanger because i am a messy bitch who lives for drama


	4. New Hampshire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! I am about to head back to college after winter break, so there's been a lot of family time. I hope you guys enjoy it though, and I will do my best to get 5 up in time!

Tommy asked Jon to get food a few days after the kiss. Even though Jon was churning out stump speeches at breakneck speeds to meet the demands of a long push of primary contests, he cleared his schedule after the debate at Saint Anselm College.

They ate greasy sandwiches at a small restaurant in downtown Goffstown and conversation flows easily - there is no shortage of primary talk to be had. They laughed about Clinton supporters losing their proverbial shit after Iowa, but Jon couldn’t shake the kiss from his mind. They’d done that, and now here they were, eating dinner together like that was all normal. Like making out breathlessly in the Des Moines HQ print room was a thing they did, as typical as having a beer. 

If Jon was being honest, kissing Tommy had felt as easy as breathing. It was something he could  _ definitely  _ get used to, but Jon also knew he  _ definitely _ would fall apart if he asked and Tommy let him down easy in the polite, spokesman sort of way that he spoke to reporters. Tommy was busy and Tommy was gorgeous and Tommy could sleep with anyone on the campaign trail he wanted, having cheekbones like that. Even though Tommy was  _ his _ soulmate, no evidence pointed to Jon being  _ Tommy’s _ soulmate. All he could do is tie Tommy down, and Tommy Vietor did not seem like the kind of person who let anything tie him down from what he wanted; he’d moved to fucking Iowa for the campaign, after all. Certain he was only a liability to the blonde, Jon settled on sipping his Blue Moon and laughing along at Tommy’s bitching about pundits who were calling a third-place finish in Iowa a win for Clinton, somehow.

The check was cheap, a definite benefit to spending time in rural New Hampshire, but when Jon tried to hand Tommy cash for his half of the bill, Tommy slapped his hand away.

“I asked you to come eat with me, didn’t I? I’m paying,” Tommy told Jon.

“We get food all the time when we’re together, come on, don’t be ridiculous,” replied Jon, who was urging himself to not get his hopes up by making anything of this.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to take me out next time, won’t you,” Tommy teased. Before Jon could get a word in, Tommy handed the waitress the folio, a shit-eating grin across his face and his eyes locked on Jon. 

* * *

They walked back to their run-down motel through flurries, the kind with massive flakes that illuminate under the streetlights and stick to your eyebrows. Jon thought it almost looked fake, like the ‘Anytown, USA’ set on a Hallmark movie; ordinary but pristine, a sort of everyday fairy tale.

“I love the snow,” said Jon, “reminds me of Boston.”

“Yeah, for all the complaining we did about New Hampshire in January, it’s really something when you get here, you know?” Tommy replied as they followed the bend the path took around a frozen-over pond.

“Yeah,” said Jon, “it sure is something.” The conversation lulled for a moment, and Jon laughed to himself at the place in which he has found himself once again - a speechwriter without words. Well, maybe that wasn’t the case. Jon could have given a Shakespearean soliloquy about the little New Hampshire town they were in, but no matter how beautiful it was, Jon couldn’t say that while detaching himself from the internal conflict about the kiss. 

All of Jon’s love for Goffstown, New Hampshire was intertwined with his love for Tommy. The falling snow looked just the same as it did in Framingham when he was a kid, tranquil and gentle as it covered everything around it, a stark opposite to the conflict in the campaign and the conflict in himself. He wondered if he’d even find Goffstown so gorgeous if one day, long after the campaign is over, he came back alone. Then again, he could never experience Goffstown apart from Tommy, who was now with him every time he opened his eyes and took in the color of the world. There or not, Tommy wouldn’t stop being his soulmate, and Jon was terrified that the vibrant beauty of the world would always serve as a reminder of what he could never have.

“Look, Jon,” Tommy says, breaking the silence.

This was it. This was the conversation Jon had been dreading; Tommy had wined and dined him, as much as you can call sandwiches and beer wining and dining, and now he was going to say the kiss was a mistake, that they were better as friends. Jon could only meet Tommy’s eyes and nod.

“That other night, when we won Iowa,” Tommy started, as if to remind Jon, “uh, well, that was probably the best night of my life so far. And, you know, it wasn’t because we beat the polls, or that we upped turnout, or any of that. Not that that wasn’t, you know, great and all. But, uh, Jon, when we kissed in the print room - I really like you. Like, a lot, and I know we’re both swamped with this campaign and everything, but I’m now mostly gonna be traveling with you and the team, and, well, this was just a really just a long way of saying I’d really like to go out again. And be, you know, together.”

Jon’s heart thumped rapidly against his sternum, and for a moment he just looked at Tommy, whose face appeared even more angular under the streetlight. He reached out, touching a hand lightly to Tommy’s jaw.

“Yeah,” Jon said, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards, “I’d like that a lot.”

Jon presses his lips to Tommy’s, and compared to their first frenetic kiss in the print room, this one is much gentler, softer. Jon’s head is still spinning, though, and he knows that he can’t hide the soulmate thing from Tommy forever. Tommy’s his boyfriend now - even thinking the word gives Jon a rush - and as this progressed, it would only get harder to conceal the truth. Telling Tommy wouldn’t be inconsequential though; there were many a tale of campaign romances around, none of which dealt with the gravitas that being soulmates carried. A soul bond - especially an unrequited one - would be a lot to deal with right now, maybe even too much for Tommy.

But Jon just leaned into the kiss a bit more; this entanglement of crises was a problem for future Jon. Current Jon was preoccupied with the sensations of the snowflakes melting on his nose and Tommy’s hand on his back.


	5. Interlude: Primary Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon reflects as the 2008 primary wraps up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is short and it's been a minute, I've been crazy busy with the start of this semester but I promise to be better about updates. Comments and Kudos are so appreciated!

The 2008 Democratic primary had been contentious and competitive, Tommy would tell the press, but one that ultimately informed the American people and pushed the candidates to be as best prepared as they could be for an immensely important election. 

That goddamned primary had been absolutely fucking exhausting, Tommy would say to Jon at the end of it all. Jon couldn’t help but agree. It had been brutal, and there were so many nights that Jon or Tommy would return to their shoebox apartment in Chicago seething about some new bullshit bad faith argument out of the Clinton campaign. The summer had flown by in a haze of rebukes and rebuttals that Jon and Tommy wrote for the campaign, but it was also a summer together. Jon reckons that he would have spontaneously combusted if Tommy hadn’t been there to kiss him hard and suck him off after Jon had stormed in after a meeting regarding the campaign’s response to accusations that Senator Obama was secretly a Muslim. 

In the hot-headed scarlet fervor of the primary, Tommy’s sarcastic jokes and goofy smiles were the most refreshing things in Jon’s life. Tommy was invigorating. Even though he had his own weighty job, Tommy was always there to center Jon when he began to circle the drain with his anxiety that each snafu was the end of the campaign. They would roll their eyes and laugh at Clinton lines like “Change you can Xerox,” and “he just said cocaine!” They would end nights tangled together after making love, and even though their sweat mixed with the humid Chicago air to make them both thoroughly disgusting, Jon had never felt happier.

In his worst moments, Jon worried that Tommy would one day find his soulmate and leave Jon in the dust. He felt like he had finessed his way into this life where woke up every morning in a queen-sized bed with Tommy’s arms draped around his shoulders. Before Tommy realized that he didn’t want to put up with the earnest wunderkid forever, Jon wanted to soak up each minute with him. He wanted to spend all the time he could with this person who didn’t just give him the ability to see color, but made Jon feel like his insides were vibrant and sparkling.

They were both spent. Jon and Tommy probably both averaged about three and a half hours of sleep per night, and by the time their heads hit the pillow most nights, they were near delirious. At least throughout this flurry of fatigue, Jon thought, he was with the person who reminded him of why he wanted to be awake - why he wanted to be truly and fully alive. So even when Jon woke up and his eyes screamed with exhaustion, he grinned at the thought of shuffling into the kitchen and seeing a similarly-exhausted Tommy holding a cup of coffee he made for Jon, just how he likes it.

But now, Tommy was resting his head in Jon’s lap as they half-watched a Red Sox game on their couch. That exhaustion was on the back burner now, simmering before the crescendo that would come with the general election. They knew they had won. It was a week until the convention in Denver. Jon’s workload was relatively light, comparatively. All he had to do was polish the victory speech, and even though this speech was crucial, he felt confident in its draft. For now, Jon could just sit on their vaguely gross olive green couch, run his hands through Tommy’s floppy hair, and enjoy what he couldn’t help but think were stolen moments.


	6. Denver Democratic Convention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is so late, midterms have been killing me!

Despite the fact that he had only recently turned twenty-seven, Jon thought it a miracle that writing the convention speech didn’t make him go grey. He was especially grateful, since now that he could see color, he feared what the silvery strands he saw on some of his colleagues would look like against the rest of his brunette hair. Speechwriting for this audience was brutal in a way that it never had been for Kerry; he wanted Kerry to win, sure, but he yearned to be a part of the America that Barack Obama painted in their long meetings. Jon could see it so clearly, and Jon desperately wanted to write a speech that conveyed that image such that the American people could see it, too.

For weeks, it felt like the hand-wringing about the convention would never end, but then they were backstage and it felt like only moments ago had Jon first entered that cramped, grey, windowless campaign office where a folding table functioned as his shared desk. It felt like only moments ago that a new guy walked in with honey-blue eyes and turned Jon’s world on its head. In that campaign office, all the color was awash in the fluorescent lights. That day, the world looked like it had ran through a printer low on ink, but the color was there. And each day going onward, Jon fell more and more in love with the vivid hues of the blooming countryside along the campaign trail, as well as more and more in love with that blonde boy who made it all so vibrant. They hadn’t said the words yet, Jon was still too afraid of it all unraveling before his eyes, but he knew he loved Tommy, and some bold part of him told him Tommy felt the same way.

He couldn’t believe it. It was all so new, so precarious, that Jon felt that if he moved a muscle he would wake up in a twin bed in the suburbs of Boston. So he read along with the speech backstage, dreadfully still, with his legs crossed, elbow resting on his knee, chin in hand, following each word the president said. The Amtrak joke had gotten a laugh. Good. It’s going fine. No curtain has fallen yet, no neon sign reading “Jon Favreau is a scam,” nor did the Senator take the podium only to reveal this was all an elaborate episode of Punk’d. 

Jon was following the printout so diligently that he jumped when he felt someone sit next to him and slink an arm around his shoulder. He turned to see Tommy with his lips quirked upwards at Jon.

“Dude, you think if you don’t read along to one word he’s not gonna say it? He trusts you, Jon. You did good.” 

Jon relaxed a bit and maneuvered his hand to Tommy’s knee, leaning into the touch.

“No, I know, it’s just so - I don’t know, you know?”

“And they say you’re this brilliant wordsmith.”

Jon laughs and leans into Tommy’s side, dropping the printout.

“Shut up, you’re the worst.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment on the batty old couch backstage in the stage’s left wing, just listening. Obama’s voice boomed throughout the stadium, reading a speech that for so long felt like a story Jon told to himself to pass the time.

_ That's the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper. _

“It’s wicked good, you know. The speech.”

“You’d hope so, it’s kind of high stakes, Tom.”

“No, I mean, I know, I just -”

“Thanks, Tommy, it means a lot.”

_ The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America – they have served the United States of America. _

“God, I shouldn’t have written that last sentence. It’s so corny.”

“I honestly won’t fight you on that one. It’s not your finest, Favreau. Still a damn good speech, though.”

Jon laughed again. Tommy does that to him. But the moment lulled back into silence, and Tommy rested his head on Jon’s shoulder. Jon breathed in the moment - the fresh smell of Tommy’s shampoo, the musty couch, the orangey backstage lighting, the warmth of Tommy’s body pressed against his, and the the rhythmic cadence of the Senator’s voice overhead.

_ Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend. That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours — a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot. _

“Hey Jon?”

Jon hummmed in response.

“This is one of those moments I think they made color for. I’d never want to see this any other way.”

Jon’s spine straightened and his shoulder jostled Tommy’s head. 

“I - you- I - what?”

“Jon, calm down. I just meant that this is one of those moments I want to remember in perfect detail. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“No, but, the… the color! You said you didn’t want to see it any other way.”

“What? I mean, Jon, of course I want to see the color,” Tommy laughed nervously, “Doesn’t everyone want to see the color?”

“But you can see them already. You said any  _ other _ way.”

Silence hung between them for a moment.

“So, I’m assuming you can’t, then,” Tommy muttered, “that’s what I thought. I - I’m sorry, Jon.”

“That’s not - that’s not the question. Why would you do that, Tommy, Jesus! Why would you lead me on for fucking months when we’re working on a fucking Presidential campaign! You clearly have another soulmate, well where are they, Tommy? What was I, just a way to kill time before you go back to your one true love who didn’t want to move to Iowa with you?”

“No, I don’t - Jon -” he breathed out, “I saw them when I saw you. The colors. In that campaign office. I didn’t want to say anything in front of everyone but you acted like nothing happened at all and I didn’t want to make things weird for you, shit’s so important after all. So I just wanted to be your friend and I did but then you kissed me in Iowa and it’s all gotten so out of hand. I’m so sorry. I should have told you sooner. You don’t want something serious. You have so much potential and your soulmate’s still out there and I shouldn’t keep you from that, you deserve that.”

“You saw them too.”

“Too?”

“You saw the colors too.”

“Oh, Jesus, Jon,” Tommy choked out on a sob, and threw his arms around Jon, both of them still on the old, ragged couch.

“We’ve just been running around each other. I didn’t think you saw them, you didn’t think I saw them,” Jon said into Tommy’s shoulder, holding him closely and feeling like electricity was running through his body.

“God, I can’t believe, how stupid is that, how much time we wasted.”

“We’re both still here, aren’t we?”

_ America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. _

“I can’t believe it,” Jon breathes out, and kisses Tommy. He felt free - here it was, something so beautiful, and for once he knew it didn't have an expiration date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOYS
> 
> More is to come, much more ~soulmate~ action


	7. Epilogue: January 20, 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his new office, Jon bears witness to a future to come and the past that got him here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done! This is the epilogue that really wraps up this story, but let me know if you want to see a sequel in this verse (would likely be more fluffy, etc.) I am @delaneyeileen on tumblr (it's not a fan blog but I am reachable) so rec me there please if you want to see anything else - in this verse, out of this verse, all fair game. Thanks everyone so much for sticking with this fic! You've all been so kind, it's been so wonderfulk

January 20, 2009 - Washington D.C.

Jon’s basement office was empty, save for a few boxes and file folders. His cheeks were still pink and cold from being outside for so long - whose wise idea was it to put the inauguration in January - but he could not help but smile as he draped his overcoat on the spinny chair at his desk.

“Jon Favreau - Director of Speechwriting. Not a bad set up, huh?”

As Jon turned at that voice he knew all too well, a smile overtook his rapidly warming cheeks.

“Can’t complain, Assistant Press Secretary Tommy Vietor,” he teased, reaching out to grab Tommy’s wrist, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Tommy chuckled in reply, moving to rest a hand on Jon’s shoulder, and Jon was once again transported back to Chicago HQ on that wintry Wednesday almost two years ago when he saw Tommy’s stony-blue eyes and everything slid right into place. Jon still kicked himself for not saying anything to Tommy that day, but as Tommy usually reminded him, if he had they wouldn’t be them. They had a pretty damn good love story. Everything had worked out, after all. 

* * *

Still, it was hard to believe it had only been 383 days since Jon drunkenly kissed Tommy in that Des Moines print room that smelled of printer toner and promise.

381 days since their first date at that dive bar in New Hampshire the day after the Saint Anselm debate. 

356 days - which in retrospect, was a really fast move considering what he knew then - since he had told Andy about the fling he was having with another Obama staffer from Boston who shared their love of the Pats and the Red Sox, and told Andy that he and Tommy would really like each other, if it got to that point. It did get to that point, and they did really like each other.

351 days since Super Tuesday, when Tommy turned to him from the tiny TV in the cramped, outdated kitchen in Jon’s apartment that was already practically housing two people. “We might actually do this,” Tommy said to him breathlessly when the map on MSNBC once again showed an Obama win. Jon knew the secret that hung between them, that he didn’t have the courage to admit, about the colors that brightened up his life and each speech and each moment. He didn’t tell Tommy about the colors that constantly reminded him that this was real, as real as it could possibly get in Jon’s life, so real it paralyzed him. He mustered just enough courage to loop his arms around Tommy’s neck and say, “Yeah. We just might actually do this.” That night, they made love for the first time. It was all impassioned whispers and stifled moans, so as to not wake the neighbors through the paper-thin walls, but it was perfect, all scarlet and plum swirling above Jon’s head. As he fell asleep with Tommy curled on his chest, Jon ran a hand through his boyfriend’s hair - God, of all seven billion people on Earth, Jon got to call Thomas Frederick Vietor the Fourth his  _ boyfriend _ \- and for the first time let himself think they might actually do this in a way that had nothing to do with the campaign.

309 days since Tommy handed him a glass of water after Jon had thrown up from nerves in a hotel bathroom in Philadelphia half an hour before Obama went out to give a speech on Reverend Wright and race in America. Jon was dizzy, more aware than ever that he was a 26 year old white guy from Boston trying to write about things far beyond his knowing. The race once again felt so uneasy, like the entire team was standing in a canoe in a thunderstorm. Jon took the styrofoam cup from Tommy, smiled back at him, and felt steady for the first time in days.

292 days since Jon told Tommy he loved him while they walked back to Jon’s (their, really) apartment. It was an ordinary April night in Chicago, still deceptively chilly but the city was in bloom and Jon saw Tommy in all the green and the white flowers and blue skies and yellow raincoats and it just felt right. Tommy said it back without hesitation and squeezed Jon’s hand. They shared a kiss under the streetlight and continued walking home.

268 days since Jon met Tommy’s parents for the first time when they stopped in Massachusetts for a weekend off after winning Pennsylvania. He agonized over what tie to wear, having laid each out on the bed and paced as he tried to decide on an outfit suitable to being the first boy Tommy had ever brought home to his parents, something that surely had to be a shock to their system. Tommy teased him about bringing all twelve ties he owned for one weekend and reassured Jon that, “They’ll love you no matter what, how could they not?” Three days later, back in Chicago, Tommy gloated about how he was right. “Mom just called, said you’re, quote, an absolute doll, with such lovely manners, you’d better be just as sweet when you meet his parents, Thomas, unquote.” Jon threw his head back laughing at the high-pitched impression of his mother Tommy had moved into, and once he retained his breath, answered, “I live to serve.”

227 days since Jon’s twenty-seventh birthday, when Tommy had convinced Gibbs to keep Jon hours later than Tommy at HQ with assignments so that Tommy could organize a massive surprise party in their cramped apartment. Jon was shocked that they could fit so many people in their hellhole of a living quarters, but his only real reaction was embarrassing sentimentality at the chorus of “SURPRISE!” that greeted him when he walked in the door. It took all his might to keep from tearing up at Tommy in the center of it all, like a human golden retriever underneath a hand-drawn banner that very clearly was the work of the press office, not the design team. That was also the night that Andy and Tommy became a formidable beer pong partnership.

230 days since Hillary - finally - dropped out and endorsed Obama. Plenty of days since that had become inevitable, but Jon was still relieved when it happened.

146 days since they sat backstage at the convention and Tommy said that this was one of the moments they made colors for. 146 days since Jon let himself finally believe that they  _ would _ actually do this. 146 days since Jon let himself believe in forever.

140 days since they came out to the campaign. Tommy insisted that it wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but Jon, ever-anxious, insisted that plenty of guys on this campaign are roommates, Tommy, and good friends at that, they don’t just jump to gay. “I mean, first of all, bi,” Tommy countered, stifling a giggle, “and I just don’t think we’ve been as slick as you think, Jon.” He was proven right when HR rolled their eyes at them in the meeting and asked if they had anything else to share.

119 days since everyone’s fear about the possible strategic finesse by Jon McCain choosing Sarah Palin, a younger woman that was a sweetheart of tea party conservatives, as VP dissipated. "As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where – where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border,” she said, explaining her foreign policy experience. Tommy turned beet-red from laughter in the middle of campaign HQ, bent over in his folding chair from laughing so hard. “You know, Jon,” he said between gasps for breath, “we might actually do this. Imagine if you wrote a line like that.” They laughed so hard their stomachs hurt.

78 days since Jon sat underneath a table backstage at HQ calling Ann Nixon Cooper, tears falling down his face as he told her that yes, it would be on television. Champagne corks popped and staffers whooped, but Jon stayed on the phone for a few minutes, lingering in this moment. Tommy finally found him and crouched next to him to hold Jon’s hand and run his thumb over back of it. Without saying anything, Jon smiled back at Tommy, whose eyes were rimmed with purple from rapid response since 3 a.m. and had never looked so beautiful. When Jon hung up, they both stood up and held each other tightly for a moment, laughing in each other's arms because what was there to say, really? They had done it, and everything was bright and saturated and beautiful. 

27 days since Christmas with the Favreaus, when his mom had made Tommy cry by calling him part of the family. At the sight of tears, Jon’s eyebrows furrowed, and he put a hand on Tommy’s knee, said, “of course you are, love, of course you are.” That night, Jon and a cousin of his got their asses handed to them at beer pong by Tommy and Andy. Even later that night, after disgustingly sappy lovemaking and a hickey on his neck that insisted the turtleneck Jon got for Christmas be put to use tomorrow, Tommy straddled him, kissed him sweetly. “You’re my family too. I love you,” he said, looking down at Jon with only the bathroom light shining through the crack and illuminating their faces. “I love you too. Here's to many more Christmases together.”

18 days since they left their apartment in Chicago and moved to a nicer flat in the DuPont circle neighborhood of D.C., only a mile to the White House. It was small, but clean, with bright windows, a living room, two bedrooms, and the promise of a future together. After almost a year together, months knowing they were soulmates, Jon didn’t think seeing Tommy’s name on the lease next to his would do much for him, but he still felt butterflies. They hadn’t even talked about living together, it was just a given. This life together wasn’t up for discussion.

0 days since the inauguration, when the President, the  _ fucking  _ ** _President, _ ** read a speech that Jon wrote for him about the America that Obama let him believe in. Zero days since he stood two rows back from the stage, Tommy’s hand laced in his, and it was all bright blue banners and pure white snow and gleaming yellow hope, right in front of him. 

* * *

“Need help unpacking?” Tommy asked as he pulled the lid off a cardboard box full of books to go on Jon’s shelves.

“Don’t you have an office of your own?” Jon crossed over to Tommy, though, and began filling the shelf.

“Eh, Lower Press is a shitshow right now. Plus, I wanted a chance to see my hot date before the Inaugural Ball tonight.”

Jon laughed. “You loser, we live in the same 700 square foot apartment, you’d see me when we got ready.”

“Guess I’m impatient then,” Tommy said with a tinge of nervousness in his voice that made Jon’s stomach twinge. Tommy ran a hand through his hair and stepped towards Jon’s door and pushed it shut. He bit his lip and looked back at Jon, looking no different from the kid who’d been told he was going to run shit in Iowa two years ago, scared but hopeful, in over his head but desperate to swim nonetheless.   
“Tom, honey, what’s going on? You’re scaring me,” Jon said, trying and failing to ensure his voice didn’t waver.

“Jonathan Edward Favreau. Jon. Before I met you, I thought that I would meet my soulmate and see know it was them from the color alone. The colors are beautiful, and Jon, I stand by what I said backstage at the convention, every moment with you is the kind of moment that God or whoever is out there made color for.”   
“Tommy, what’s this about? What are you trying to say? I love you too, Tommy, but really -”

“Jon, just... okay? Just hold on. Just wait. Let me say this,” Tommy insisted, gesturing wildly. Jon just nodded and let him continue.

“I am so glad I get to know you in perfect color but Jon, what they didn’t tell me, what I’d never expect, is that I’d know it’s you without the color. You’re my soulmate, the love of my life, and I can’t imagine living without you. I could sit on our grubby old couch with you watching the Red Sox for the rest of my life and I’d be the happiest guy in the world. All I need is you. So, Jon,” he started, pulled a box from his messenger bag’s front pocket, and slid down to one knee.

“Oh my God, Tommy. Jesus Christ, Tommy. Oh my God.”  _ Tommy was about to ask him to marry him. Right here, in his new office, in the fucking White House. And all evidence still suggested he wasn’t on Punk’d. They’d go home to Massachusetts, it’s legal there. Maybe they’d get married on the Cape. Andy would probably insist they play beer pong at the wedding. Their moms would cry. Tommy would be his husband, with a ring and everything, and they’d have kids one day and a dog and - _

Tommy laughed. “I can see you thinking. Once again, Jon, just wait. Let me say this, please, honey. I love you, Jon Favreau, more than anything in the world. You make my life better. You color every day just by your presence. I am a better man when I’m with you, and I still can’t believe I’m lucky enough that you love me. But I want to do this forever, so let me ask you, the love of my life, my soulmate, Jon, will you marry me?”

By then they both had tears streaming down their face. Jon’s face was red and blotchy, and he slid down to his knees in front of Tommy and looped his arms around his neck before replying, “God, I love you, of course, of course I’ll marry you, Tommy.”

Tommy brought his front leg down so he mirrored Jon kneeling, wrapped his arms around Jon’s back, and clung to him, burying his head in Jon’s neck.

“God, Jon,” he let out on a sob, “I love you, I love you so much.”

Jon laughed ecstatically and pulled back from the hug to look Tommy in his pink, blotchy, beautiful face. “I love you too, so much,” he replied, then pulled Tommy in for a kiss that tasted like tic-tacs that Tommy must have popped in anticipation before entering Jon’s office. The kiss was sweet and passionate all at once, speaking of love and promise and hope and a future so vibrant Jon swore he could see it.


End file.
